The NUMBER ONE Reason Managers Fail In Crucial Areas

Do you know the number one reason managers fail to grow their companies? Managers fail in crucial areas because of lack of leadership, not lack of management. When you fail to educate your employees, you fail to give them what they need to continue to evolve and grow and your company suffers as a result. In my book Built to Lead, I made the statement, “Don’t be so busy working IN your business that you never work ON it.” What is the difference between working in your business and on your business?

One way to define what you do within a company is to outline your role. List the important things that you do every day, every week, every month and every year. There is a pretty good chance that if you made a list and recorded how many hours per week you spend on each job, you would learn a disturbing fact: about 80 percent of the time you spend at your job is spent on tasks that contribute to 20 percent or less of your overall company productivity.

Think about that for a minute. If you are like most managers, you are so busy “managing” that you do not have time to pay attention to the things that matter, such as how your company is growing and providing opportunities for the future of your employees.

If you are spending the majority of your time on mundane management issues it is important to reverse this trend. Start educating your employees and delegating authority to them. Release them to do their jobs while you focus on the important factors that can create opportunity and help your company grow. If you want to educate your employees and then allow them to do their jobs, you will avoid the problems and mistakes that make managers fail in crucial areas and cause companies to flounder. In my book Built to Lead, I discuss the problems faced by managers who do not lead but instead try to manage or even micro-manage their employees. If you are one of these types of managers, it is important that you change your style quickly before you damage your company and endanger your own job.